STATEMENT OF WORK

My work is centered on the long-term cultivation of living trees using a hybrid of bonsai and tanuki techniques. Growth is directed through sustained intervention of pruning, grafting, wiring, bracing, weighting, and other training devices that apply continuous force over extended periods. These apparatuses remain visible when the trees are exhibited, contrary to conventional bonsai presentation. Their exposure makes explicit the conditions under which form is produced and maintained, foregrounding labor, constraint, and ongoing responsibility rather than idealized outcomes.

I work with deadwood shaped by erosion and further altered through controlled burning. Channels are carved into these remnants to receive living trees, binding new growth to material already marked by loss. The wood is charred using traditional Japanese methods historically employed to preserve and waterproof timber. Burning does not restore the material; it stabilizes it while retaining evidence of stress and damage. This process is also used in framing paintings and constructing vessels for the trees, linking preservation and degradation through a shared procedure.

Paintings, drawings, photographs, and videos function as documentation and research within this system of cultivation. The paintings record specific stages or conditions rather than perfected forms, sometimes including and sometimes omitting the training structures. Drawing serves as a method of close observation, translating structural adaptations found in mature trees into the ongoing cultivation process.

Alongside the living works, I preserve trees that did not survive. Stabilized and presented as sculptural objects, these remains register failure as a material outcome of care. Across the practice, emphasis is placed on duration, exposure, and accountability, framing stewardship as a continual process shaped by uncertainty rather than resolution.